Review Summary: Outside of a couple of new tracks, Atlas Genius brings nothing new to the table and raises the question if their success so far was a fluke.
Back in August of 2012, Atlas Genius released an EP,
Through the Glass, of three catchy indie pop songs. Their single “Trojans” just seemed destined for success and brought attention to this quartet. Through the Glass gave the band an identity: a band capable of writing fun, infectious pop melodies with the playing chops to back it up.
Flash forward a handful of months to now; the band has released their first album entitled
When It Was Now. An album that incorporates the three tracks found on their EP plus eight new songs. If there was ever an album that could be called infuriating, this is one of those albums.
When It Was Now starts off strong with a one-two punch of great, new songs. The first, “Electric”, is a high energy synth-infused dance song with nice vocal harmonies followed by another wall-of-synth and guitar song known as “If So” (that has a pretty catchy, if simplistic, chorus chant). From there we get a pair of EP songs, “Backseat” and “Trojans”. A very strong start, this Aussie band shows great promise with the two new songs.
The following songs, minus the last one (
Through the Glass’ “Symptoms”), are new material, and it is here where things start to get dicey. Listening to these new songs is exciting at first, since, well, it’s new. But that quickly wears off as none of the fun, the strong melodies, or excitement that permeates the first half of the album is there. Everything becomes indistinguishable in this bland, lifeless gauntlet of songs: just another indie pop band. In fact, at some points, it sounds as if they are ripping off themselves (“On A Day”). Never has an album lost its personality so quickly.
It almost seems as if Atlas Genius thought if they have a strong opening (which they do) and have a strong closer (which, again, they do) then whatever happens in between can be fluff. With six of their eight new songs being something close to filler and generic, it certainly backs up that argument. It makes it difficult to recommend
When It Was Now when five of eleven songs are worth hearing. It’s even harder to recommend it when three of those five have been released previously. The whole thing is rather infuriating since “If So” and “Electric” are the two best songs the band has written and deserve to be heard. Just what happened?
There is something disheartening when a band does not live up to its hype, but it’s even worse when the question of whether or not the whole thing was a fluke to begin with creeps into mind. This seems to be the case with Atlas Genius and
When It Was Now.
